Mirror Image
by Kitskune Miyake
Summary: Dick always hated the mirror across from his bed, but he never came around to removing it...


_Okay, so this is a little weird and confusing, but I hope you like it anyways. Loosely inspired by a thing I saw on Reddit. More notes at the bottom_

_Disclaimer: Don't own Dick Grayson. Obviously._

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Dick always hated the mirror across from his bed, but he never came around to removing it.

Day after day he woke up and stretched, staring back at his reflection as it mimicked his actions as expected. He could see his bruises and scars reflected back at him, and every day he took even a little time to trace a couple, as if to reaffirm their presence on his skin. Watching himself trace his scars was therapeutic, if not a bit creepy. His life was damned to know no other repetition.

One day, he looked into the mirror and saw his reflection blink back.

Taken aback, he scooted backwards, bumping into the headboard with a loud clunk. He looked away and looked back only to see himself again. "Only a trick of the eye," he told himself, running his hand through his hair. He looked up again and traced a scar running from his shoulder down his bicep, watching as the reflection copied the action.

The rest of the day faced the same paranoia, constantly looking back at his reflections and reassuring himself that, yes, it did everything he did and nothing else. He received a few odd looks from the others, but he paid no heed.

That night, he followed his reflection as he climbed into bed. As he turned over and curled into the comforter, he realized that this probably wasn't healthy. He was too tired to care, though, and he closed his eyes and dropped into sleep.

It continued for nearly a week. Day in and day out he watched his reflection. Sometimes, he swore that it blinked at him, made a slight pout at him, but he didn't bother telling anyone else. _'You're imagining it. Are you getting enough sleep?'_ That's all they would say. But Dick knew better.

He awoke to a knock. He lived alone. In an instant, he was sitting up, eyes open and adjusted to the near darkness as he looked for the source of the knocking. His bedroom door was open, but the sound was close, possibly in his room. Azure eyes flickered to the closet door, strewn widely open, barely noticing the discrepancy in his reflection from the mirror.

_The mirror..._

He looked back and nearly yelped as his reflection-no, it couldn't be his reflection, not by any standard definition-banged hard against the glass. He reached next to him and turned on the light, allowing the soft, yellow light to illuminate the darkness. The face in the mirror-his face- was desperate and bloody, its fingers torn and scrapped as if spent clawing against a surface he couldn't break. The scars couldn't even be seen anymore, obscured by the terrifying amounts of blood on his bare torso.

Quickly, Dick looked down at his own skin, his light, unstained skin. Unmarred, unbroken but for scars and bruises. But those were meant to be there. He lived a hard life. Athletics came down hard on him, and he had a period of self-harm... he always did wonder why he seemed to have too many scars in the mirror.

He edged off the bed and approached the mirror uneasily. The figure in the mirror defied his movements, instead, coaxing him forward with frantic movements of the hand. It tried to speak, but the words sounded muffled on the other side. Dick pressed his ear against the mirror, trying to discern what looked to be a plea.

_Help... me..._

And suddenly, the pleading was gone, the thumps against the mirror silenced. He pulled away from the mirror and looked back. All seemed well. He ran his hand through his hair and watched his reflection do just the same thing back. He held up a wrist and traced an ugly scar, meeting his reflection's eyes as he did so. Maybe it had all been a terrible hallucination. Something he ate or... something.

He curled back into his bed and left the lights on, just as a precaution. Burrowed under his comforter, he couldn't see his figure in the mirror smile wickedly, shifting out of his face and turning into a shadow as it turned away, wicked intentions bubbling under the surface, if only one looked long enough.

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**A/N: **Yeah, so this got confusing... anyways, I was aiming for a story playing off multiverse/parallel verse. In another 'verse, Dick Grayson is a normal civilian with issues, but no world-destroying ones. His reflection always reflected a parallel self: Nightwing. See, mirrors are windows into other universes. One day, Nightwing gets trapped in a mirror (Mirror Master perhaps?) and that's the incident at the end. But reflections and stuff are guarded and maintained, so Nightwing acting out like that makes him due for punishment from the creepy thing.

Too confusing?

Anyways, review please! Even just a short one!


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